What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

Gender Studies I

Status
Not open for further replies.
Fishman'81 said:
Blah-blah, blah blah-blah-blah…
Click to expand...

My wife is 6’0, and she’s relatively short when compared to many of her other lady cousins. A number of girls in my high school were taller than 6’0”, and we didn’t have a good basketball team. So no, your lack of point still holds no water and sucks as bad as ever.
 
St. Clown said:
My wife is 6’0, and she’s relatively short when compared to many of her other lady cousins. A number of girls in my high school were taller than 6’0”, and we didn’t have a good basketball team. So no, your lack of point still holds no water and sucks as bad as ever.
Click to expand...

Height helps, but isn't the be-all-end-all. We all watched Maunte Bol, Einstein.

Muscle mass, "hops", general athleticism... You know what I'm referencing here. And that sort of thing isn't fairly distributed at birth, by and large.

I still haven't read a single cogent comment via any of you wonderful geniuses as to why it makes any sort of sense to actually field biologically-female teams in this context.

You all seem to imply that every team in every single sport shouldn't discriminate on the basis of biological gender... High schools can therefore field a single football team, a single basketball team, a single whatever the fuck, and let's see who makes the teams. (99% of them will be biological males, of course.)


Gender this, gender that, it's utterly ridiculous to go there in the context of physical competition in the usual American sports.
 
Last edited:
Regarding trans women in sports... I know this is complicated. We want to be fair to the cis women so they aren't subject to fraud perpetrated by less-than-honest males masquerading as trans women, also to make sure that trans women don't have a sort of built-in biological advantage (more on that in a minute). We also want to be equitable to trans women (also trans men, but that seems to be less at issue?) because rights are for everyone.

Regarding the potential for fraud, my thoughts are:
  • Does this even really happen? I kind of feel like we're tilting at windmills here. Maybe I'm wrong but pretending to be trans is a long way to go for a very nebullous edge.
  • Does the olympics have something to help here? I admit this isn't really on my radar so I apologize for saying something dumb. But don't they test hormones and have threshholds? Again, sorry if I'm being an idiot here, just understand that it's in good faith and I'm openly admitting my ignorance.
Regarding the inate possibility of advantage to trans women over cis-women:
  • I think pretending this doesn't exist is kind of silly. It does exist. But how much of it, and is that amount enough to deny the rights of trans women to participate? I honestly have no idea.
  • I struggle to find actual information on this, but don't cis-men and cis-women have different bone structure? Muscle mass can be modified via hormones and, you know, working out. But bones and joints not so much. How much of an advantage does this provide, if any? Again. No idea.
  • Sorry, I feel like I have more questions than cohesive thoughts on this topic.
Equity for trans athletes:
  • We also need to make sure we don't pretend that this isn't important. It is. It's vital, in fact.
  • If we don't allow trans athletes to participate in the gendered sport of their identified gender, we're effectively denying them the ability to participate in any sport, and that's absolutely not ok.

So let me get out that I support trans rights. I find the christian and republican opposition to them hateful and gross. But athletic participation is complicated and worthy of discussion. Unfortunately, it's so polarized that discussing it almost always goes nowhere good. And the more we choose not to discuss this, the more we tell trans folks to go pound sand, and that's bullshit.
 
Swansong said:
Regarding trans women in sports... I know this is complicated. We want to be fair to the cis women so they aren't subject to fraud perpetrated by less-than-honest males masquerading as trans women, also to make sure that trans women don't have a sort of built-in biological advantage (more on that in a minute). We also want to be equitable to trans women (also trans men, but that seems to be less at issue?) because rights are for everyone.

Regarding the potential for fraud, my thoughts are:
  • Does this even really happen? I kind of feel like we're tilting at windmills here. Maybe I'm wrong but pretending to be trans is a long way to go for a very nebullous edge.
  • Does the olympics have something to help here? I admit this isn't really on my radar so I apologize for saying something dumb. But don't they test hormones and have threshholds? Again, sorry if I'm being an idiot here, just understand that it's in good faith and I'm openly admitting my ignorance.
Regarding the inate possibility of advantage to trans women over cis-women:
  • I think pretending this doesn't exist is kind of silly. It does exist. But how much of it, and is that amount enough to deny the rights of trans women to participate? I honestly have no idea.
  • I struggle to find actual information on this, but don't cis-men and cis-women have different bone structure? Muscle mass can be modified via hormones and, you know, working out. But bones and joints not so much. How much of an advantage does this provide, if any? Again. No idea.
  • Sorry, I feel like I have more questions than cohesive thoughts on this topic.
Equity for trans athletes:
  • We also need to make sure we don't pretend that this isn't important. It is. It's vital, in fact.
  • If we don't allow trans athletes to participate in the gendered sport of their identified gender, we're effectively denying them the ability to participate in any sport, and that's absolutely not ok.

So let me get out that I support trans rights. I find the christian and republican opposition to them hateful and gross. But athletic participation is complicated and worthy of discussion. Unfortunately, it's so polarized that discussing it almost always goes nowhere good. And the more we choose not to discuss this, the more we tell trans folks to go pound sand, and that's bull****.
Click to expand...

The Olympics and various sports orgs have guidelines. For example, the trans weightlifter from NZ who competed in Tokyo last year had to have a T level below 10 pg/ml for over a year. And she didn't make it to the medal round.

For myself, I know the hormonal process has hollowed out my bones and made me weaker and more susceptible to injury. It also didn't make me a faster runner and stronger athlete, and cis women were kicking my ass up until I was forced into retirement.

If it happens, it doesn't happen on a massive scale. And seeing as this is a new/uncharted issue, this needs to be left to various organizations instead of state governments. Because if state governments handle it, it results in genital inspections for minors, and it will hurt cis girls who don't look "girl enough."
 
Last edited:
MissThundercat said:
The Olympics and various sports orgs have guidelines. For example, the trans weightlifter from NZ who competed in Tokyo last year had to have a T level below 10 pg/ml for over a year. And she didn't make it to the medal round.

For myself, I know the hormonal process has hollowed out my bones and made me weaker and more susceptible to injury. It also didn't make me a faster runner and stronger athlete, and cis women were kicking my *** up until I was forced into retirement.

If it happens, it doesn't happen on a massive scale. And seeing as this is a new/uncharted issue, this needs to be left to various organizations instead of state governments.
Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks for that info and anecdote. I agree with your last statement too.
 
Swansong said:
Interesting, thanks for that info and anecdote. I agree with your last statement too.
Click to expand...

Also, the athletic abilities of trans women vary from person to person. I generally suck at sports and all the trans women in my circle are a bunch of nerds. But Lia Thomas does not suck at sports.

But seeing as we're accused of cheating regardless of hormone intake or athletic ability, I'm tired of participating in this argument, and am exhausted with having to fight back against everyone who declares us cheaters.
 
MissThundercat said:
But seeing as we're accused of cheating regardless of hormone intake or athletic ability, I'm tired of participating in this argument, and am exhausted with having to fight back against everyone who declares us cheaters.
Click to expand...

Those accusations are not about you. They are about the cowardice and bigotry of your accusers, who are not worthy of a moment's thought
 
MissThundercat said:
Also, the athletic abilities of trans women vary from person to person. I generally suck at sports and all the trans women in my circle are a bunch of nerds. But Lia Thomas does not suck at sports.

But seeing as we're accused of cheating regardless of hormone intake or athletic ability, I'm tired of participating in this argument, and am exhausted with having to fight back against everyone who declares us cheaters.
Click to expand...

To the bolded... I mean, duh, right? (not being snarky)


I understand how tired this conversation is, but I can assert two things:
  • I bring any of it up in good faith, in an effort to better educate myself on a topic I know virtually nothing of.
  • It's an important, if frustrating, discussion because most people don't even care to educate themselves on it, and if we're ever to attain anything even in the universe of approaching actual equality, we need to have it. A lot.
 
Swansong said:
To the bolded... I mean, duh, right? (not being snarky)


I understand how tired this conversation is, but I can assert two things:
  • I bring any of it up in good faith, in an effort to better educate myself on a topic I know virtually nothing of.
  • It's an important, if frustrating, discussion because most people don't even care to educate themselves on it, and if we're ever to attain anything even in the universe of approaching actual equality, we need to have it. A lot.
Click to expand...

But it's a conversation where my community needs to have an equal voice at the table. Because right now, I'm not participating if my voice will be drowned out by an uneducated rube with an opinion.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top